Dear Reader, In This Issue

Transcription

Spindrift
Perambulating the
Graphic Arts industry
since April 2003
Volume 9, Number 3 • 8th June, 2011
News Focus • Opinion • Reviews • Technology • Interviews • Ranting • Psychotherapy • Hoopla
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked
about, and that is not being talked about.
– Oscar Wilde, 1891
Dear Reader,
We have been swamped in Fespa news for the last few weeks, so we
thought ourselves reasonably well prepared for the actual event.
But we were wrong. From this dreadful and unprecedented (almost)
realisation, we draw two important conclusions. The first is that the
graphic arts industry still has the capacity to surprise and invent,
even though it seems a tough place to make a living.
The second conclusion is that more developers see opportunities in
print media supply chains. There are now so many players that it can
be overwhelming for journalists trying to keep up with all the news.
Editors must struggle to make decisions about what to cover or
ignore, and publishers to see opportunities for future projects. The
plethora of media channels furthermore confuses business owners
and their target markets. Everyone is simultaneously fighting to stay
focused and ignore distractions.
Enjoy!
Laurel, Nessan, Paul and Todd
In This Issue
A Hamburg Happening
Laurel Brunner was overwhelmed by the Fespa
show, so much so that we’ve split our coverage
across two issues. This month she looks at the
new printers demonstrated at the show, finding
new takes on established technologies, with
narrow formats going wider and wide formats
going narrower.
see page 12
Save time and gain quality
Paul Lindström runs through some of the options
for automated image enhancement and the way
that the technologies work. These systems range
from standalone desktop solutions to serverbased systems suitable for photobook printers
and newspapers.
see page 16
Black is the new black
Nessan Cleary looks at the market for
monochrome printers and asks if the market for
black and white is still healthy, how much room
for growth is there for colour devices.
see page 21
Carbon Conundrums
PrintCity recently released a report into carbon
footprinting for the print industry. However,
Laurel Brunner finds some surprising omissions.
see page 24
Regular Features & Special
Treats
News Focus
News Analysis
Heroes & Zeros
Picture This
A Review
Green Shoots
An Interview
Crossword
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Spindrift • 8th June, 2011
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Agfa has released a new version of its wide format
production printer. The M-Press Leopard incorporates
the same ink-jet shuttle technology as the M-Press
Tiger, but utilises a simplified feed system, with manual
loading for fast positioning of the substrate onto the bed.
Heavy substrates up to 20 kg/m2 can be pushed towards
registration pins in the back side of the table. The variable
vacuum zones hold the thinnest and most flexible papers
or materials completely flat so that they can easily be
printed alongside rigid substrates.
News Focus
Fujifilm has a new cloud-based web-to-print solution,
XMF Print Centre, which allows a print service provider
to easily create single or multiple e-commerce portals
tailored to the requirements of individual or multiple
customers. It features a comprehensive back office
administration system for managing all aspects of the
online print environment and supports a wide variety of
printed products including brochures, posters, booklets,
calendars, photobooks and business cards
Manroland has added two new models to its 16-page
Rotoman press family. The DirectDrive can change the
form on the run at 70,000 copies per hour. Every printing
tower is equipped with two motors and the cylinders can
be moved so wide apart that the paper web runs between
them contact-free. The HiPrint is designed for high quality
work and runs at 55,000 copies per hour
Heidelberg has issued 916,638 new shares increasing
its share capital by €2,346,593.28 to €599,672,166.40.
On March 30, 2011, Heidelberg arrived at an amicable
agreement with the shareholders of Linotype-Hell AG,
ending several years of legal dispute. As a result the
former Linotype-Hell shareholders will be granted a
supplementary payment in the form of these Heidelberg
shares. To create the shares, the Management Board made
partial use of its authorisation in 2008 to issue shares
from the authorised capital.
Heidelberg has demonstrated its Linoprint DriveLine
F UV inkjet printing system at the Interpack show. This
digital printing system is an inkjet solution for inline and
nearline integration in packaging lines, particularly in the
pharmaceutical and medical engineering industries.
GMG, which develops colour management and proofing
solutions, has bought Aurelon, the developers behind
Four Pees’ PrintFactory, a large format workflow and RIP
solution. The two companies have already worked closely
together and this acquisition should be a good fit for both.
Spindrift
HP has shown off new additions to its Latex printer
line-up at the Fespa show. These include the LX850, a 3.2m
printer with multiple workflow features, including dualroll, roll-to-free fall and roll-to-collector handling and an
ink collector. Alongside it was the LX610 Latex inks that
produce rich blacks and glossy results on banners and
self-adhesive vinyl, and offer improved water resistance
on fabrics.
ISSN 1741-9859
A very special newsletter for Graphic Arts, Prepress, Printing &
Publishing Professionals, published ten times a year by:
Digital Dots Ltd
The Clock Tower • Southover • Spring Lane
Burwash • East Sussex • TN19 7JB • UK
Tel: (44) (0)1435 883565
EFI has shown off its latest baby, the Vutek GS3250r, a
3.2m wide-format production printer claiming a low total
cost of ownership, a true 1000 dpi resolution plus dual
roll-to-roll capabilities and the 3M Matched Component
System warranty. It’s a six-colour UV inkjet with a
maximum throughput speed of 111 square m2/hour.
Subscriptions:
Spindrift is a digital only publication, distributed in Adobe .pdf
format. A ten issue subscription costs €190 and can be obtained
by going to www.digitaldots.org and subscribing. Discount
multiple subs are also available.
Roland has a new formulation of UV-curable ink with
extra elasticity that enables prints to be stretched and
extended up to 220 percent. It’s suitable for shrink films
and thermoforming as well as printing to awkwardly
contoured items such as bottles.
Publisher – Laurel Brunner – [email protected]
Editor-In-Chief – Nessan Cleary – [email protected]
Technical Editor – Paul Lindström – [email protected]
Production/Websites – Todd Brunner – [email protected]
Subscriptions – Helen Moderski – [email protected]
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© Digital Dots Ltd • www.digitaldots.org
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Roland has also announced the VersaUV LEF-12,
a desktop device which can handle two- and threedimensional applications up to a maximum size of 334 x
310mm. As such this unit can be used to create decorative,
promotional and specialist jobs for a broad range of
commercial and industrial requirements.
Enfocus, which now becomes a WoodWing Authorized
Technology Partner, while WoodWing joins the Enfocus
Crossroads community as an Application Partner.
Together, the companies will offer enhanced integration
between Enfocus Switch and WoodWing Enterprise 7 –
enabling publishers to further automate and streamline
their media production processes.
Neolt, which makes large format printers, has now
produced an Industrial Inkjet Module, a complete inkjet
printhead engine. This features Xaar 1001 printheads
and is aimed at companies wishing to develop their own
specialist industrial inkjet systems.
Canon has replaced its ImagePrograf LP17 with a new
iPF510, which is compatible with Windows 7 and OS X
in both 32-bit and 64-bit. Featuring a Reactive ink system,
the printer uses four highly colourfast dye inks - Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow and Black - plus two channels of pigmentbased Matte Black - to deliver vibrant full-bleed posters,
clear text documents and crisp technical drawings.
Xennia has launched XenInx Amethyst, a high quality
reactive dye ink formulated to print onto cotton, silk,
viscose and linen fabrics. It’s designed to work with
Xennia’s own printheads but will also run with Kyocera
heads. It’s available in cyan, magenta, yellow, black,
orange, red and blue.
EFI has a new version of its Fiery Command workstation,
which mainly deals with print job management. This now
includes the snappily named Fiery Image Enhance Visual
Editor, which allows for editing of each image in a job
without going back to the native design file. There are also
improvements to the imposition and the addition of EFI’s
Color Profiler Suite for dealing with ICC profile problems.
Barbieri has a new spectrophotometer, the Spectropad,
a wireless battery powered instrument which can be
operated without a computer and therefore directly at the
printer, even without cutting the media. Jobs can be stored
in the device and measurement results (if requested) sent
through WiFi to the computer. It uses D50 illumination
based on LED technology by Just Normlicht that matches
the new measurement condition M1 introduced with the
ISO standard 13655-2009.
Four Pees has said that its PrintFactory Go will feature a
direct link with the Zünd Cut Center solution. PrintFactory
Go obtains information from the Zünd Cut Center via
a network connection and makes it available to every
PrintFactory Go user. This means that the desired output
like material, cutting method and tools can already be
determined during the designing phase of the print files.
A one-click vectorisation tool can quickly create outlines.
Hamilroad Software has shown off its DM-II screening
solution, using its own Auraia-II technology which allows
high-end violet and thermal platesetters to produce
images that emulate the quality of a traditional 400-500 lpi
screen, whilst also producing rosette-free, moiré-free and
noise-free flat tints that equal or better the smoothness of
conventional screening.
Punch Graphix saw its sales increase by 6.7% during
the first quarter compared with the same period last year.
Sales during this period grew from €30.1 million to €32.1
million. This is mainly due to increased sales of Xeikon
digital presses, though the report notes that customers
are still having difficulty financing new printers.
Royal Mail has become the world's first postal company
to help businesses make their post interactive using
digital watermarking technology. People receiving the
digitally-enhanced post simply scan the watermark with
their smart phone to access the online content.
Samsung and Acer have introduced new laptops
running Google’s Chrome OS and which have limited
hard drive storage, being tightly integrated into Google’s
Cloud online services instead. The new Chromebooks
mark a direct challenge to Microsoft’s core PC and
Windows market.
WoodWing, which specialises in developing crossmedia publishing solutions, has partnered with
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Océ has sold its 30 percent stake in DataPost to
Singapore Post for S$6.0 million (approximately €3.4
million), giving it 100 percent ownership. DataPost is a
provider of electronic printing and dispatching services
with subsidiaries in Malaysia and Hong Kong and Joint
Ventures in Thailand and the Philippines.
Epson has launched a new range of low cost substrates
specifically for its inkjet technologies and products
called Production Media for Inkjet. It includes coated
and uncoated media for the CAD market and dedicated
signage materials for point of sale work, all for aqueous
ink printers.
Guandong Italia Srl has introduced Raffia, a new 170
gsm PE banner, made up of 3mm PE mono-axial oriented
strips woven as a textile. It’s suitable for offset, screen
and digital printing with UV inks, and has a mechanical
strength three times higher than traditional banner items
with half the weight classical media.
Xerox has updated its ColorQube MFP family with the
release of the 9300 series. These come with a Hybrid
Colour Pricing Plan with customers paying only for the
amount of colour on a given page, so for example, an
office document with a logo or small graphic will cost the
same as if it were printed in black.
PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, has issued a call
for entries to companies who have produced successful
marketing projects. Every submission will lead to a case
study in PODi’s database and a chance to win the 2012
Best Practice Awards competition. Winners are invited to
receive their awards and present their case studies at the
2012 AppForum in Las Vegas. Deadline for entries is July
25, 2011.
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All three models come with a new EFI E41A print server,
which can be integrated into most common workflows,
from inplants to producing flyers and photobooks.
News Analysis
Ricoh launches new family of
presses
There’s quite a number of optional extras available for
finishing, including a new multi-folding unit, a large
capacity input tray and ring binder, 100-sheets staple
finisher, booklet-maker, stacker, GBC StreamPunch Pro EX
and Plockmatic booklet maker.
Ricoh has launched three new, light production, colour
digital printing presses targeted at print-for-pay providers,
digital printers and commercial printers, as well as CRDs
and print rooms. Top of the range is the Pro C751EX, available both with
and without a scanner, which run at 75 pages per minute
for both colour and monochrome printing. There’s also
the slower Pro C651, which runs at 65ppm but also comes
with a scanner.
All three of these models feature a new laser beam
technology, called VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting
Laser) that delivers 4800 dpi resolution for precise
reproduction. The laser system monitors paper expansion
Heroes & Zeros
Hero
Several Intergraf member associations are working
together to develop a carbon calculator. Intergraph is
the association of European print industry associations.
Contributors to the new calculator, which is consistent
Ricoh’s new light production printer, the Pro C751.
with the ISO 16759 framework, include the national
printing associations of France, Denmark, Netherlands,
and contraction during warming and cooling for better
registration, said to be particularly noticeable in sharp
text at smaller point sizes.
Belgium and the UK. France and Denmark have done most
of the research work and the calculator will be very similar
to the one BVDM has already published.
These printers also use liquid cooling technology, which
optimises developer temperature so that the printers
can be used for longer runs without any interruption.
Other features include active toner density control, which
enables stable colour density across longer runs. Ricoh
has also enhanced the Operator Replaceable Units to
Zero
Twitter has done many wonderful things but this isn’t one
of them:
“You hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive,
maximise uptime and productivity. It’s also possible to
replace toner on the fly so that there’s no need to stop a
print run in-between jobs.
royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license...”.
These printers use Ricoh’s new oil-less PxP chemical toner
and come with a media library of more than 150 profiles as
well as a custom library for users to make their own media
profiles. The printers will take substrates up to 300gsm
and will handle textured and speciality media.
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Secondly, we couldn’t get the whole TV tower in the
viewfinder when taking the photo, so had to take it in
three sections, and later stitch it together using the
Photoshop Photomerge function. This caused the tower
to be slightly stretched out, but we kept the distorted
effect to make it look even taller and slimmer.
Picture This
This is a picture taken outside the Hamburg exhibition
centre during the FESPA Digital expo. The sky looks fine,
the TV-tower (also nick-named Tele-Michel but officially
named the Heinrich-Hertz Tower) is happily beaming
radio and TV signals across the country, and people are
Thirdly, there was no billboard telling the arriving guests
that they were about to approach the Fespa show – we
placed it there, adding a completely different billboard
from inside the show that fitted this space. And lastly
– there was some disturbing graffiti on the container
next to the TV tower, which we cleaned away using
Photoshop. Now this is probably not recommended in
pure photojournalism if you are claiming to depict the
real event, as it happened. The only defence we have is
that it was as well we didn’t put a real billboard next to
the bicycle path – any cyclists would have bumped their
heads badly if they hadn't see it in time!
gathering to enter the expo, guided by large format
billboards like the one in the foreground next to the two
men walking towards the expo halls.
Well, things are not always what they seem to be. First
of all it’s not really a clear sky. It contains more than 0.002
grams per cubic metre of volcanic ash, so is not safe to fly
through. This is only hours before we had hoped to leave
Hamburg by airplane, to go home.
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The front facing camera offers around 0.3 megapixels
for VGA resolution of 640x480, which is just about good
enough for video calling, including Apple's FaceTime.
Unfortunately Skype has yet to catch up with an iPad
version and the iPhone version doesn't scale very well to
the larger screen.
A Review
This month we've been playing with the iPad 2, an
expensive yet strangely compelling device. The strangest
thing about the iPad phenomenon is that many people
who felt no real need for such a device suddenly realised
In itself, the iPad is no substitute for a computer as you
need to be able to sync it with a Mac or PC to manage
it via iTunes from time to time. However, it is a viable
alternative to carrying a small laptop around, with some
that it neatly filled a gap in their life. It is true that you
could probably make do with a notebook, but any
notebook small enough to be comparable with a tablet
involves quite a lot of compromise. Whereas with an iPad
there’s no real compromise at all: it’s extremely good
at some things like surfing the web and reading books,
and completely useless at other things, such as serious
photo editing – but then that’s not much fun on a smaller
notebook either.
As with the original, this iPad has a 9.7ins backlit screen
with a resolution of 1024 x 768 at 132 pixels per inch.
This gives a fairly crisp display but given the ultra sharp
brilliance of the iPhone 4’s Retina display many people
had expected a higher resolution screen. This new model
is also thinner and lighter than the original, and has a flat
back, making it easier to put it down on a surface. Some of
the competing Android tablets are smaller, and therefore
Apple's iPad 2; shown here with an iPhone 4 for comparison.
The keyboard is big enough to touchtype; with practice; yet the
device is small enough to be truly portable.
more portable, but we think that Apple have got the size
about right as it’s quite comfortable to read from the
screen and to type with the touchscreen keyboard.
caveats. It doesn't have anything like the computing
power of a laptop and it won't accept other devices such
as portable hard drives or USB memory sticks (though
there is an optional camera connection kit that lets you
import pictures from a camera or memory card). Nor will it
let you work with multiple windows simultaneously. Also,
you can't run multiple accounts, which means that you
can't use it for anything personal if you share it with other
family members or work colleagues. Hopefully this last
is something that Apple can add to the iOS 4 operating
system.
The second-generation iPad boasts the new 1GHz dualcore A5 processor which Apple claims is twice as fast as the
A4 used in the first iPad. It also has more system memory
and a much improved GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
leading to much better video and games performance.
In addition, iPad 2 fixes one of the most glaring omissions
of the first version, namely the lack of a camera. However,
although it does have both front and rear facing cameras,
the resolution is so poor for both of these that Apple
barely mentions them in its technical specifications.
But it is much lighter than a laptop, and much smaller and
more portable, making it easier to find room for it in an
overnight bag and easier to use when you're crammed
it into an economy airline seat. Being lighter, it is also
more comfortable to use for reading books and reports
The rear camera is around 0.7 megapixels though it
can produce 720p video at 30 frames per second. The
iPad is too unwieldy to use as a camera, but this is very
disappointing, particularly given the excellent camera in
the iPhone 4.
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Conclusion
or just for surfing the Web. And it is a pretty good games
platform.
Having practically invented the tablet market, Apple is
still the dominant player by a considerable margin. There
are a number of other devices starting to appear, with
just about all of those using Google’s Android operating
system. But the really interesting thing is to see how
tablet sales are eating into the market for PCs. The next
couple of years are going to see some major changes in
the computing landscape, both in terms of how we use
computers, and the vendors that survive to sell them to
us.
The built-in keyboard takes a little getting used to but
is really quite good. The battery seems to last forever
- Apple claims 10 hours and this certainly seems about
right. Moreover, perhaps because it's not the kind of
device that you use for 10 hours straight, we've not had
any problems with running out of juice. But it does take a
while to charge up.
Also, it should be noted that Apple does have serious
supply problems with both the iPhone and iPad, not
helped by the way it treats customers. The supply is
beginning to catch up now but for the first few months it
was available the only way to get hold of one at an Apple
store was to keep turning up first thing in the morning
in the hope that one day they will have one. This sort of
thing might work with consumers but doesn’t go down
well with business customers. Sadly, Apple’s track record
on this means that we’ll probably see the same problem
later this year when the iPhone 5 comes out, and no doubt
again next year with the iPad 3.
Cases
Despite Apple’s claims that the screen is resistant to both
scratches and fingerprints, it is immediately obvious that
it is vulnerable to damage when carried, or even just left
lying around. Unfortunately cases for the iPad 2 are just
as hard to find as the device itself. Most places stock
cases for the first generation but as the second edition
is a little thinner and needs cut outs for the cameras then
these are largely useless. Apple itself only carries its own
Smartcover, which only offers protection for the front.
However, the device is quite slippery so it's advisable
to budget for an extra £50 for a case that will wrap
around the whole unit, making it a little easier to hold it
in the optimum place on your lap for typing, or reading.
Strangely, some people do opt for a hard cover with a
built in keyboard, which in use holds the iPad above the
keyboard much as with a conventional laptop, albeit that
a netbook would be somewhat cheaper.
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INGEDE, the European association for the deinking
Green Shoots
industry has certified the Xerox iGen4, 700 Digital Color
Press and Color 800/1000 presses as having “good
de-inkability”. INGEDE includes members from leading
On behalf of FESPA in cooperation with Xaar, InfoTrends
European manufacturers and conducts tests to identify
has published a report identifying common trends
which printed paper products have the best recyclability
amongst successful large format printing companies.
once deinked. The “good de-inkability” rating means the
High on the list was to address environmental issues and
Xerox printers scored at least 90/100 when tested for
concerns in their companies’ vision and management
luminosity, colour, cleanliness, ink elimination and filtrate
systems. According to Simon Pless of Erler+Pless based
darkening.
in Hamburg and one of the companies quoted in the
InfoTrends report: “Our sales staff used to mainly have
For more green news, check out
The Verdigris Project:
price and technology as components when discussing
with customers and prospects. Now they can add a third
V
element, sustainability, which is an increasing concern for
print buyers”. Erler+Pless, introduced sustainability as
part of their management efforts four years ago.
http://verdigrisproject.com
News International is one of the top five percent of
companies to have achieved the UK’s Carbon Trust
Standard for emissions reductions. The company is also
within the top 25% in its sector for overall emissions.
ISO 16759 has moved from working draft to committee draft
status, which means the clock is now ticking. This means
that the standard is on track to be officially published as
an ISO standard within two years.
Hewlett Packard has announced that HP PVC-free Wall
Paper is now made with FSC certified paper and is
GreenGuard Children & Schools certified. This means that
it doesn’t stink and is safe for all applications, including
those where the walls might get licked and slobbered on.
Mutoh, the Belgian developer of wide format printing
technologies, has produced a white paper for printers to
explain matters green. How Green is Green? explains the
printing processes and how to reduce their environmental
impact, and offers suggestions for going greener. Naturally
it also includes ideas for how to evaluate wide format
printing equipment. The report is available at
www.mutoh.eu.
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the iPad. There's a realisation that there will be more
An Interview
platforms. It was just print and web but now it's mobile
and tablets. It's a richer environment than paper and
that's bringing with it a tremendous urgency.”
Dynamic publishing
A few days ago we met up with Michael Boses, director of
Quark’s XML products, who told us about the new version
of XML Author, announced this week.
He adds: “We are not going to see the end of platforms.
Three years ago Boses was head of In.vision when Quark
bought the company. Boses says that the integration has
worked well: “I think it's because there was no product
But Boses is convinced that XML is the key to repurposing
There will be more and they will be more dynamic. And
we don't know what's around the corner.”
content, saying: “XML has to be the answer because
there's nothing else. So this has to be 100% transparent
and easy to use. Or else some other technology will rise to
fulfill this need and right now there's no other technology
even in the horizon.”
XML Author is essentially a plug-in for Word that adds
the XML editing directly to the world’s most popular word
processing program.
Unfortunately XML Author only works on a PC, as
Microsoft removed some of the features from the Mac
version of Word that were surplus to most users needs
but essential for XML Author to work. Boses says that
there’s clearly a need for XML authoring on a Mac: “We
think the solution will come out of the cloud. It's going
to come from somewhere and it's not going to come
from Word. The only way that we can do that is to have
a rich development infrastructure and that's not there
anymore.”
Michael Boses, head of Quark’s XML division.
overlap. They knew exactly what they were looking for.
And they really respected the expertise in the organisation
that we had, so after three years our group is still totally
intact.”
The problem with XML is that it’s not very user-friendly,
Quark itself has been interested in using XML for
automated publishing since the mid-90s, having
developed XTensions such as avenue.quark. In recent
years Quark has pushed its Dynamic Publishing Server
concept to automatically repurpose content from print to
web.
Boses accepts that there's a technical challenge in using
relying heavily on users being able to tag each element to
describe what its function is so that that function can be
translated from one platform to another.
XML, saying: “But there is also a challenge in getting
people to think about how they reuse things and whether
that would change the way they approach their work.”
Nonetheless, with XML Author 4 Quark has gone out of
its way to make the task of tagging documents with XML
information as easy as possible. There are templates that
Boses says: “The desire for multiple publishing has
cranked up in the last year and I think that's because of
have a lot of placeholders and common instructions to
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make it easier to use. Also XML Author streamlines Word’s
own Styles function by making styles contextual so that
you only see the styles that are relevant to what you are
doing. Boses adds: “We have also organised these styles
hierarchically.”
Another feature is Semantic tables, which allows you to
define the meaning of every cell in a table so that you
know what the numbers all mean.
However, where XML Author 4 really scores is in its endto-end integration with Quark's other publishing solutions
as well as Microsoft's Sharepoint, making it part of a fully
rounded solution.
Boses says: “We are developing the idea at Quark that
there are no standalone products anymore. We don't
just create an XML product but now the focus is on how
it exists within the ecosystem. How all the products fit
together is a much bigger story than any of the products.
You can buy alternative pieces from our competitors but
with Quark they are all end to end.”
Boses adds: “We are seeing organisations becoming very
smart in developing network resources so that a user can
grab information. So you have to consume internal and
external data sources straight to documents.
To make the point Boses demonstrated a pilot scheme with
a US firm of analysts that was able to pull in information
from external sources such as the stock market to update
information or to search networking sites such as LinkedIn.
It’s a powerful example and shows XML Author moving
beyond merely editing XML information to become part
of a fully-rounded editorial system.
It’s a subject that we’ll inevitably return to later in the year
with a more indepth look at these systems.
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A Hamburg
Happening
buyers soaking up the ideas and technology possibilities
at the show. There were ample offset printers in the aisles
and for many suppliers these are ideal customers. For
instance, HP’s fully automated Turbojet 8600 is aimed at
offset printers who want a digital press to provide new
short run services.
Fespa used to be a show for presenting the latest
developments in conventional screen-printing
technology. The show was designed for a very
particular bunch of visitors, but in recent years the
organisers have extended its reach with a dedicated
event for digital machines that appeal to screen and
offset printers alike.
The technology emphasis at Fespa was clearly on
performance, with many new takes on established
technologies, with narrow formats going wider and
wide formats going narrower. There were lots of twists
to software, which we will cover next month. Obviously
companies are once again investing substantially into
research and development. EFI, for instance, spends 20
percent of turnover on R&D, to meet the needs of new
applications.
Fespa Digital has rapidly become the glittering jewel in
the printing industry’s show calendar, attracting screen
printers and their commercial sector counterparts. For
the two days we were at the show, the halls of Fespa
Digital in Hamburg were heaving, despite the Icelandic
ash and the closure of Hamburg Airport on day two of
the four-day event. Calling this a buzzy show is a serious
understatement. It was positively boiling with energy,
enthusiasm and imagination, from car wraps to sofas.
With wide format technology, if you can think it, someone
can print it.
Partnerships abounded, and for the most part these were
not arrangements to shore up areas of weaknesses in
different product lines. Rather they were partnerships
to help customers improve workflow productivity and
supply chain efficiencies. 3M and EFI are strengthening
their partnership to offer 3M inks across EFI’s range of
roll-to-roll and hybrid machines. Four Pees and GMG
presented new workflow and colour management
packages for wide format applications. EskoArtwork is
working with VTales Graphics on software to allow brand
owners and retailers to assess the on-the-shelf and pointof-sale impact of packaging and displays. The Esko Store
Visualizer lets users place virtual objects in photographed
scenes, so they can see designs in an in-store setting and
compare them to rival products.
There was so much to see that we have decided to split
our coverage into two parts. We start with an overview
of the yummiest of the hardware offerings, and then
next month will bring you the rest, including LED curing
technologies, workflow, RIP developments and materials.
Who’s Who?
Macho Machines
We spoke to a handful of the 22,000 preregistered visitors
who’d pitched up so that we could get a feel for the budgets
ambling the Fespa aisles. Visitors ranged from artists and
students intrigued by the digital possibilities, through to
printers trawling the aisles with customers. One of those
customers, a well known computer and consumer devices
manufacturer, was looking to up its spend on wide format
graphics, and mentioned a six to seven figure budget for
said spend.
Machine developments mostly followed the Fespa theme
of evolution, rather than revolution, but there were a
few surprises and much diversity. Fujifilm introduced its
second-generation UVIStar printers, superwide engines
for outdoor signage and display POP applications printing
5m widths at up to 350m2/hour. The second generation
adds a new technology developed by Matan called Parallel
Drop Size. It prints both 40pl and 20pl drops depending
on the shadow and highlight content of the image, along
the lines of a stochastic screening technology. There is no
compromise on ink coverage or printing speed and the
Admittedly you don’t get many of those sorts of customers
to the kilo, but there were plenty of other well-heeled print
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new technology increases the range of applications for
the UVIStar line. Improvements have also been made to
the head to produce more uniform ink density.
issue takes the company into the lower end of the market
where it sees a potential for 2000 machines. This entrylevel engine is a high productivity industrial machine
for sign makers and smaller shops that want high
output quality and reliability. Durst is undergoing a new
Inca’s latest addition to its Onset line is the Onset S40.
This wide-format UV flatbed printer sits between the
flagship 750m2/hr device and the Onset S20, which prints
at 310m2/hr. The Onset S40 prints at up to 470m2/hr using
up to 168 new-generation printheads (28 per colour) on a
full width print bar delivering a 27 picolitre drop size. The
user can replace failed heads. Fuji distributes these beasts,
which can print with four or six colours using Fujifilm’s
UVijet OB ink.
Agfa we reckon has the broadest product range for this
market, and introduced a bevy of new stuff. The star is a
baby version of the M-Press Tiger. There are 23 Tigers in
HP is taking its Latex technology on tour. This huge truck is due
to make 25 stops around Europe over the coming months.
branding exercise for the Omega 1 and appointing new
distributors for it. But it still won’t say what the Omega 1
costs. There is also a faster model of the Rho UV engine.
The Rho 1000L prints 380m2/hr.
the field and Agfa is installing them at a rate of about two
per month. The new M-Press Leopard prints 1.6 x 3.2m
and is designed for ease of use but unlike the Tiger has
no inline screen-printing. The target market is companies
outputting between 200,000 and 500,000 square metres
per year.
HP showcased its two new Latex platforms, so there
are now four Latex engines. The new 3.2m LX 850 and
LX820 are next generation versions of the existing LX800
technology, which is being replaced. The LX820 is the
entry-level machine that prints roll-to-roll. The LX850 is
the top of the range machine and can print roll-to-roll,
roll-to-collector or free fall, and sports an ink collector
plus a snazzier Digital Front End and workflow system.
The LX850 is suitable for all manner of applications
including fabrics and thin textiles. It also has dual roll
capability. Both models support double-sided printing
without having to unroll using inbuilt sensors to check
front and back registration.
The Leopard prints rigid and flexible media up to 5cm thick
and 20kg/square metre at up to 483m2/hr in production.
It costs just under €1 million and the first Leopard is
installed at Dambach-Bachman in Germany. The first five
machines are being installed in Europe, close to the Agfa
base and then Agfa will target the US, Australia and Asia.
Durst’s new Omega 1 machine covered in last month’s
HP’s almost wholly automatic 500m2/hr FB7500 is
positioned as a conventional screen press replacement,
with around 60 machines installed, of which 50 percent
are with repeat customers and 75 percent with customers
that also have Turbojets. Gardners in the UK, for example,
has HP technology for its variable data work and recently
completed a job of 63,000 different panels, Gardners
Agfa has launched the Leopard, building on the success of its
M-Press platform.
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reckon the use of VDP saved a fortune in distribution and
management costs.
version of the machine with LED cooling, details of which
will be covered in our next issue.
HP has almost a hundred Turbojet and FB7500s installed,
mostly at sites converting from analogue production to
digital or digital printers expanding into wide format
print. Over 5,000 Latex machines are out there primarily
For the GS3200 EFI has added a continuous board printing
option for a 25 percent performance boost. This is an
onsite upgrade. The 3.2m TX3250r is EFI’s newest dye sub
machine for textile printing and soft signage, printing up
to eight colours at 42m2/hr. This volume machine will be
available at the end of the year.
EFI also had some changes to its roll-to-roll engines.
There are two new options for the 5m GS5000r: inline
white and clear ink printing, and automated double-sided
printing. This is the only machine in its class covered by
3M’s MCS (Matched Component System) warranty. This
ink is standard on the product.
EFI gave an engineering demo of the 3.2m Rastek R3204 a
roll-to-roll machine expected to cost less than €100,000,
which will be an industry first. This entry-level UV-curing
printer is a four-colour greyscale machine.
EskoArtwork showed off this Kongsberg i-XE10 automated
cutting table.
with companies switching from using eco-solvent inks to
Latex, and to producing new applications for consumers
or web-to-print for decorative print such as flooring and
wallpapers. HP is seeing a decline in solvent machines,
which customers are replacing with UV roll-to-roll and
Latex machines. New low-end flatbed markets are fuelling
rising demand for less expensive configurations and HP
is emphasising solutions, within a print production
ecosystem.
Atlantic Zeiser, better known for narrow format than
wide format presses, presented its new GAMMA 70
Series, a single-pass UV printer that combines Xaar 1001
variable drop greyscale printheads with an Atlantic Zeiser
controller and data preparation software. It prints a
width of 70.5mm at up to 24m/m for applications such as
packaging, labels, commercial and in-plant printing and
is available with conventional or LED curing. We’ll cover
LED curing next month.
EFI has now sold almost 200 Vutek GSs and, based on the
volume of inks sold, estimates that over 12 million square
metres of media have been output on its machines. The
company sees customers moving from short runs to
medium and long run work. Customers apparently are
buying two machines at a time to put in place of single
conventional screen presses, to cope with rising demand.
Matan introduced the Barak iQ UV-printer, using its
PDS technology to print both 20pl and 40pl droplets
to enhance image quality with smooth highlights, and
dense shadow areas. The Barak iQ also has real-time ink
temperature control, to determine ink viscosity. Matan
also presented a thermal transfer-based printer called
Spring3, which uses solid inks and no solvents. Typical
use is for traffic sign printing and long life labels, with up
to 12 years durability.
The new GS 3250 is a 3.2m roll-to-roll UV-curable printer
that prints up to six colours at 600dpi (28pl) or 1000 dpi
(14pl) for customers who want to move away from solvent
ink machines. The 3250R is for high speed POS “the UV
tipping point” and prints 110m2/hr at high quality. It is in
beta and will be available mid-year. The GS3250LX is a
Swizzqprint uses Konica Minolta heads to build wide
format engines capable of outstanding quality. The Impala
is a hybrid inkjet printer that prints roll-to-roll or with a
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Gandy Digital
Following the apparent bankruptcy of Gandinnovation
and the transfer of its assets to Agfa, the brothers, James
and Hary (sic) Gandy, have re-entered the market, oozing
charm as always. Under the name Gandy Digital the pair
presented a UV-flatbed printer called the Pred8tor, which
uses Ricoh printheads and an Ergo-Soft RIP.
We had gone into this show not expecting to see much
in the way of new engines, so we were quite unprepared
for the sheer diversity in new machines on show. But we
were forgetting that new developments keep coming
Matan showed this thermal transfer-based printer, the Spring3,
designed for traffic sign printing and long life labels, with up to
12 years durability.
flat bed for rigid media. It comes as standard with an eight
colour inkset, CMYK plus light cyan, light magenta and
light black plus white. Primer, varnish, orange, green and
blue can be added as an option. The Oryx is a UV-curing
industrial high-end flatbed inkjet system that can handle
panels weighing up to 400kg and 5cm thick. It prints up
to 4m wide at an apparent resolution of 1200 dpi. It has
a rollfed option for rolls up to 2.5m wide with a 360mm
diameter.
The Gandy brothers,
Gandinnovations.
Hary
and
James,
founders
of
because customers keep on demanding new tools to
meet the demands of their clients. The astonishing rate
of innovation in this sector confirms not only that print
continues to thrive despite the profound change in the
industry, but that the change is no longer technology
lead. Rather, technology is following the growing and
increasingly voracious appetites of users and print
consumers for innovative media options that get their
messages noticed.
Taiwanese developer GCC uses Konica Minolta heads
in the StellarJet K100UV printer designed for industrial
printing applications. This four-colour printer outputs
14pl drops for 720dpi images or 1440 dpi with the
addition of Lc and Lm. It can be configured with eight, 12
or 16 heads for CMYK and CMYK plus Lc and Lm or 10 for
CMYK plus white. A seven-colour model (CMYKLcLmW)
uses 14 heads but adding a varnish to that lot requires
a 16-head device. It includes a roll-to-roll system for
printing flexible as well as rigid media.
Coming in next month’s issue: LED curing technologies,
workflow, RIP developments and materials.
– Laurel Brunner
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Save time and gain
quality
use of XML. One special feature Agfa highlights is the
Multi-Dimensional Processing (MDP), which analyses
the images using both spatial quality and geometry,
using tonal characteristics as well as colour values in the
analysis.
With more and more images entering the publishing
workflow and (it seems) less and less time to handle
them manually, it might be a good idea to consider
using one of the excellent solutions for automatic
image enhancement on the market.
What this boils down to is that it identifies skin tones not
only by a likely colour of, let’s say, beige, but also checks
if this area has the shape of a face, before adjusting the
colours to the skin tone assumed to be ideal. The MDP
is also used before applying electronic sharpening,
depending on whether or not sharpening has already
been applied.
There are some pioneers still around, the veterans if you
like, but there are also several newcomers with interesting
features and solutions on offer. We will come back to this
Besides being able to integrate tightly with Agfa’s other
workflow component in the Arkitex suite, Intellitune can
also interface with third party solutions through XML.
Cropping, rotation, resizing and colour conversions can
all be automated actions. Intellitune can even guess what
the original ICC profile might have been if it has been
removed, and re-install an ICC profile while enhancing
the image to the fullest gamut possible. Another function
in Intellitune is to calculate ink savings when preparing
the images for final output. Most of the Intellitune systems
sold by Agfa have gone into newspaper production so far.
Binuscan is another veteran in this sector, with several
options on offer to enhance quality and optimise colours.
The flagship product is the IPM Workflow Server, where
IPM stands for Image Production Automation. The founder
of Binuscan, Jean-Marie Binucci, started the software
company when he couldn’t find a good enough image
retouching application to use in the repro department of
his printing plant. The technique called RECO (Rebuilding
and Correction) was originally developed to improve
the image quality of scanned images but is still used by
Binuscan and has been improved to also perform image
enhancement on images taken by digital cameras.
Agfa Artifex Intellitune uses Multi-Dimensional Processing (MDP)
to analyse images using both spatial quality and geometry, as
well as tonal characteristics.
topic when we have made a more exhaustive test of some
of the solutions, but here is an overview of the solutions
we think you should take a closer look at.
The whole image is analysed, not only the histogram, and
both saturation, gamma and electronic USM (Unsharp
Mask) are optimised for the images. On top of that colour
conversion can be done, as well as ink optimisation and
adjustments to the ISO setting and print conditions that
have been applied. IPM Workflow Server also has plug-ins
and extensions to layout software like Adobe InDesign
One of the veterans is definitely Agfa with its Arkitex
Intellitune, part of the Arkitex suite of workflow tools.
It’s a server-based solution with clients for both Mac
and PC, and can be automated both by scripts and the
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Before and after. A difficult image by any means, but the Color-Science software Q-Enhancer manages to extract shadows details out
of the original image without losing any of the coverage in the highlights.
and QuarkXpress, to instruct the JobManager (part of
IPM) how to automatically process the images.
sharpening another. Images can be processed though
predefined hot folders, but also through InDesign plugins. If an image seems to need extreme corrections, Claro
can route this image for manual inspection in Photoshop
by a repro operator. Claro can analyse and process both
single images and images inside PDFs. It can be scripted
through XML for automation and integration with, for
example, editorial systems.
Perhaps less known is the Swiss company Colour-Science,
which has a range of image enhancement software in
its portfolio. The software Q-Enhancer is offered in
several versions, from the entry edition to the server
version. Among the impressive features of the software
is Local Sharpness Enhancement (LSE), which preserves
delicate smooth skin tones, and/or very similar areas like
a sky, without creating the coarse and grainy result that
electronic sharpening in, for example, Photoshop can
often produce. Face recognition and red eye removal as
well as JPEG artefact removal are other features that also
impress.
Yet another pioneer and veteran within imaging, Fujifilm,
has a powerful image server solution named XMF C-Fit.
This was originally developed for the Photo Labs market,
but found its way into graphic arts workflow systems via
the Fujifilm XMF RIP System. One of the unique features
of C-Fit is the Fujifilm Appearance Mapping Technology,
which (in simplified terms) blends the original ICC
rendering intents Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric
when converting from RGB to CMYK. In doing so, it will
enhance the vibrancy or colourfulness of the resulting
CMYK image, to better match the RGB original.
Elpical has its roots as the electronic imaging part
of Hasselblad, and parallel to distributing the asset
management solution 4LeafClover it also offers the image
enhancement software Claro. Claro comes in two versions
– the standalone single user version Claro Single, and the
server edition called Claro Premedia. A term Elpical use
to describe the enhancement functions is “dynamic nondestructive”, which means that a range of algorithms is
applied during the analysis, and the actions taken will not
compromise the quality of the original image.
On top of enhancing single images, C-Fit can also
enhance the images inside a multipage PDF-file. Image
enhancements are made with the Fujifilm trademarked
technology called Image Intelligence, which use presets
called JobTickets for different types of images and
workflow scenarios. The Image Intelligence algorithms
can correct white balance and optimise exposures,
remove red eyes, make skin tones smoother and adjust
Identifying skin tones and enhancing them is one
strong point, while optimising the amount of electronic
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PhotoTune from OnOne uses the Eye-Fidelity technology from Imsense to adjust and correct images for brightness, contrast, colour
and dynamic range.
sharpness. More print process related functions can also
be applied, like resampling, resizing, cropping, rotation,
ink limit and file format conversions.
made on its technology on the Internet – we are quite
certain you will be as impressed as we are!
KlearVision is another perhaps less well known company
within graphic arts, but has several software products
for image enhancement on offer. The key product is the
software Suite Kolor-D, that uses what KlearVision call
Image Expert System (IES) technology to prepare images
for output. Among the algorithms that can be applied to
images are brightness correction, tone adjustment, colour
correction, cropping, grey balance, adaptive electronic
sharpening, noise reduction, skin tone enhancement,
adaptive contrast and red eye removal. The complete
workflow solution supports the use of hot folders, but
KlearVision also offers standalone solutions for single
users.
A company to look out for is Imsense, with Professor
Graham Finlayson as Chief Technology Officer and
founder. Professor Finlayson was awarded the Royal
Photographic Society’s Davies Medal in 2009 for his work
in image processing. An important part of the work at
Imsense deals with dynamic range compression, and
rumours have it that Apple uses this technology in the
HDR function in iPhones and iPads though we haven’t
been able to confirm this.
The capacity to extract amazing details out of the raw data
images is called Eye-Fidelity by Imsense, and it has started
to offer this for OEM partners to implement. One of the
first to implement the Imsense Eye-Fidelity technology
is onOne software (see below), but we might see Imsense
developing consumer solutions of their own in the future.
Have a look at some of the presentations Imsense has
Kodak offers a series of plug-ins to enhance images. The
Kodak Digital SHO Pro plug-in enhances the shadow
and highlight areas, while the Digital GEM Pro plug-in
reduces noise and grain. Finally the Digital ROC Pro
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plug-in corrects and restores the colour balance in the
images. These plug-ins are mainly for manual and single
user operations, but the Kodak RIP system Prinergy
offers colour management and ink saving as server-based
solutions. But as far as we know this doesn’t include
automatic image enhancements.
Since there are so many functions and effects you can use
in all of those plug-ins, onOne has developed a wizard
that guides new users through the typical steps to achieve
a good final result from the enhancement process. When
you are more familiar with the program this wizard can
be switched off for the Pro Mode!
OneVision, vendor of preflight and prepress workflow
solutions, offers an image enhancement solution called
Amendo. This works on different parts of the image
separately, identifying areas like vegetation, sky and skin
tones. After modifications have been done the user can
trace what areas have been affected. The image processing
enhances both highlight and shadow details as well as
colours. It performs optimised electronic sharpening
and can remove red eyes. The user interface is through
a web browser, as with all modules from OneVision, but
if further image retouching is needed Amendo can pass
the image on to either another module in the OneVision
Suite, or to a third party solution like Adobe Photoshop.
Screen, manufacturer of high end workflow solutions, CTP
and digital printing presses, offers image enhancement
either inside PDFs through the ColorGenius plug-in for
Adobe Acrobat, or through the server version. Screen
makes use of the colour management know-how
developed for the scanner software it produced for both
the flatbed scanner Cezanné, and the various models of
drum scanners before that.
Screen was among the first to apply a basic form of AI
(Artificial Intelligence) on the image analysis and colour
processing, and this is further developed and applied in
We don’t claim this to be a
complete list of image enhancing
solutions, but it should be a good
start when considering which
of the many software products
around to have a closer look at
and test for yourself.
The software company onOne took over several of
the image processing products from Extensis when it
decided to focus entirely on DAM and Font management
solutions. Among the image enhancement products from
onOne is the Perfect Photo Suite, which actually contains
seven different standalone software products in one
package. The module PhotoTune uses the Eye-Fidelity
technology from Imsense mentioned above. PhotoTune
not only processes HDR images, but also uses the Eye
Fidelity technology to adjust and correct all digital images
in regard to brightness, contrast, colour and dynamic
range. Other tools included in the Perfect Photo Studio
Suite are FocalPoint, PhotoTools, PhotoFrame, Mask Pro,
Perfect Resize and Perfect Layers.
ColorGenius. Acrobat DE is a standalone and server-based
version, while both the light version called ColorGenius
LE (which is bundled for free in the Trueflow RIP system)
and ColorGenius AC operate as plug-ins for Acrobat.
The modules work as plug-ins in Adobe Photoshop, but
can also be used in Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture,
or completely standalone for that matter. Perhaps the
best way to use the Perfect Photo suite of modules is to
open the Photoshop ‘Extension’ window, and then select
the onOne options there. This may sound as if you need
to work manually in Photo Perfect, but you can actually
batch process as many images as you like through the
export function, selecting the process and preset that you
want to apply.
ColorGenius works by applying a selection of keywords
to the image that apply different algorithms that can be
previewed but won’t be applied until later when the PDF
is RIP’ed. In this way the original file isn’t touched. Screen
calls this applying a “recipe” for the different images inside
the PDF.
We don’t claim this to be a complete list of image
enhancing solutions, but it should be a good start when
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considering which of the many software products around
to have a closer look at and test for your self. We are quite
convinced that there is a lot of time to be saved, while
actually increasing the general quality level. Some of these
programs we have tested to some extent, and the result is
often amazing. Even a skilled operator would need a lot of
time to try and achieve a similar result in Photoshop, and
sometimes it’s actually impossible to repeat what a piece
of software does in only seconds, applying some clever
algorithm. Scary almost, but also very useful!
– Paul Lindström
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Black is the new
black
But will this growth in the market for colour digital
devices come at the expense of monochrome printers?
Craig Nethercott, business unit director for Océ’s
production printing division, says that the figures he’s
seen suggest that the colour market will triple over the
next three years, but adds: “Mono still accounts for 70
percent of the volume, so over 600 billion A4s are still
mono digital.” These monochrome pages come from a
variety of different applications, including transactional,
direct mail, instruction manuals and leaflets.
There are countless reports and surveys telling
us that everyone wants to print in colour and that
colour is driving the market for digital printers. So
just why is there so much monochrome print being
produced?
Kevin O’Donnell, marketing manager for Xerox UK,
argues that despite increased demand for colour, the
market for monochrome remains steady: “There’s a
couple of reasons behind that, one is the improved black
and white technology so that if you take something like
the Xerox Nuvera, which takes a coated sheet, that opens
up more publishing type applications. Also, if you take
the much higher image quality that the devices can knock
out then it opens up a raft of applications, particularly in
things like scientific and technical manuals where they
need very fine detail.”
Almost without exception, every time a new colour digital
press is announced the vendor calls a press conference
and subjects the assembled journalists to a barrage of
statistics to prove that so many millions of pages will be
However, other vendors do believe that black and white
will decline, as Pete Daniels, marketing manager for Canon
UK, says: “In broad terms we have come off a peak in the
demand for mono devices. The data that I have suggests
that 2007 was the biggest year for mono presses.”
The value of monochrome
But it also seems that the recession of the last couple of
years has offered somewhat of a reprieve to monochrome
printers with some people switching print from colour to
monochrome devices. Daniels explains: “The major area
where we have mono devices installed is in the public
sector and with the austerity measures that are taking
place there’s pressure on people first of all not to print and
then if it is necessary, can it be printed in mono.”
Pete Daniels, marketing manager for Canon UK.
printed over the coming years and that most of these will
be full colour pages. The demand for colour, supposedly,
is going to drive the uptake of all these fancy new colour
devices because colour sells everything from newspapers
to direct mail – we know, we’ve endured our share of
PowerPoint statistics.
There also seems to be evidence that more people now
have MIS and other cost control systems in place and
can see exactly how much each printed item costs, and
the potential savings from switching from colour to
monochrome.
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Daniels also points out that there is a move away from
having lots of smaller devices in favour of a smaller
number of larger printers, saying: “We work with
customers to make sure that the equipment they have is
balanced, including across large organisations redirecting
print from fleet photocopiers to the print room, and
better controls over the cost when things are in the print
room so it’s a managed provision.”
that links into the Web and produces and finishes books
online, and most paper backs are still black and white.”
But O’Donnell says that colour printing will impact the
books sector: “Vanity books, some short run publishing,
travel and more informational type books would benefit
from the addition of low cost colour. Rather than having
two or more pages in the middle of a book with colour,
being able to redesign the pagination because of the single
It’s also clear that some of the traditional market for
items that would have been printed in monochrome is
being eroded. Daniels explains: “If you look at things like
invoices, people aren’t necessarily printing off invoices,
and that would have been black and white. Some of
that print is being redirected to being emailed or other
methods, and some people are trying to drive it to colour
volume and make it transpromotional.”
There is also still a big demand for overprinting variable
black text onto colour litho work. Kodak has used its
standalone heads to push the idea of hybrid presses,
particularly within the newspaper sector. Graham
McLachlan, inkjet printing systems manager for Kodak,
explains: “It’s about trying to attract people from the
printed page to the Internet which we think has been
missing from newspaper advertising and one of the
reasons we see that it’s in a bit of a decline is that it doesn’t
fit naturally into the modern marketing communications.
We can use things like QR codes and competitions to get
people to take action to go from the printed page to the
Web.”
Graham McLachlan, inkjet printing systems manager for Kodak.
pass of mono and colour is definitely going to change the
face of that end of the publishing market place but I still
think the novel will always be left to a plain black and
white text with a colour cover.”
However, O’Donnell is more sceptical, saying: “There
is still a massive volume market for black and white
overprinting onto offset shells but I think that is one of
the market places that will shrink quite dramatically once
the inkjet devices start to eat into that part of the market.”
In part this explosion in digital book printing is because
publishers clung to a traditional model far longer than
other sectors, having only embraced digital printing
and electronic books relatively recently. Nethercott
says: “Recession has not affected volumes but may have
accelerated some of the move to digital when you look at
the cost of inventories, of storing stock and the call-off of
that stock, people are being more conscious about how
they manage their inventory.”
Book publishing
However, just about all vendors report an increase in
demand for digitally printing books, which is primarily a
monochrome market.
Daniels also points out that because mono is cheaper
longer run lengths tend to be more cost effective. This in
turn makes mono digital particularly well suited for book
printing, which is still primarily mono on the inside with
O’Donnell says: “A lot more people are ordering books
online and moving to a more print on demand workflow
and environment which lends itself to a digital model
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a colour cover. Daniels notes: “Mono devices allow big
print runs to be preserved where at the moment it hasn’t
dropped into the preserve of colour devices to do those
big print runs be that magazines or books.”
Last year HP introduced the T200, an inkjet web press
designed to run at full rated speed in monochrome but
with the ability to print in colour, albeit at slower speeds.
HP’s bigger inkjet devices were designed to be colour
devices but HP has also installed at least one monochrome
T300 with the French publisher CPI, allowing it to print
novels and technical manuals without the costs of colour.
He says that support publishing is another growth area,
adding: “And there are training manuals and documents
and ad hoc stuff that allows companies to get their
branding across or to make things look a bit more exciting.
Something simple like inserts into prescriptions doesn’t
necessarily need to be in colour. Therefore if companies
want to take cost out then it’s an area where they can
reduce cost base and that could be training manuals,
internal documents, or instructions on products you
buy.”
Kodak also has introduced a monochrome version of its
Prosper press. McLachlan says: “One of the nice things
about the Prosper press is that it’s modular so that people
generally have enough volume for a mono system but
colour is not fully developed in the market perhaps and so
they can invest in the mono and when the colour volumes
grow they can add the modules to make it colour.”
Migration to colour
Conclusion
Despite this there is clearly a move towards more colour.
Daniels says: “Colour has a value, there’s no doubt about it,
that certain things need to be on a colour page and things
that are less important can be printed in mono instead.”
Clearly monochrome printing is very well suited to some
applications, notably transactional and certain types of
books. But it seems equally clear that the relentless drive
to add colour is going to undermine the market for many
of today’s electrophotographic monochrome devices.
Several manufacturers have developed devices specifically
to help with this migration. Océ, for example, introduced
the ColorStream 10000 Flex last year, which can be
Some large volume applications, such as direct mail are
most likely to shift to colour inkjet as that technology
becomes more economically viable. Also, it is clear that
some of the sort of applications that have been printed
in monochrome will move to electronic media, if only
because as organisations look to remove the cost of
colour, eventually they will try to remove the cost of print.
The main growth area for monochrome lies in book
printing, and this growth is likely to be primarily in
inkjet rather than electrophotographic devices. Falling
run lengths will inevitably see the majority of book
production shift from litho to digital, with only inkjet
capable of handling high volume production. So it could
be that we’re not so much seeing a decline in monochrome
printing, as a shift in technology to high volume inkjet
This HP T300, installed at French book publisher CPI just outside
Paris, is a monochrome-only device, though the colour print
stations can easily be added to it.
configured with process CMYK colours or with spot
colours. Nethercott says it’s focused on clients taking
their first steps into colour: “Where you still have a high
concentration of mono, say around 70-80 percent, it gives
you the flexibility to transition into colour and you don’t
have to take that big leap.”
– Nessan Cleary
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4
Carbon
Conundrums
V
This article is part of the Verdigris series of stories
PrintCity, the nebulous alliance of industry suppliers
offering advice to the industry, has published
another of its cross industry special reports. This one
is called “Carbon Footprinting & Energy Reduction”
and we were flattered to have had the chance to peer
review it. We also provided reference material for
the authors through the Verdigris project, some of
which is included in the report.
about understanding the environmental impact of
print. The Verdigris project is supported by Agfa
Graphics, Canon Europe, Digital Dots, drupa, EFI, HP,
Kodak, Océ, Pragati Offset, Ricoh, Splash PR, Stralfors,
Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
http://verdigrisproject.com
disservice to the reader, because it is a standard that many
print buyers are asking for.
This latest PrintCity report is long on text, charts and
tables, but it is definitely not for the fainthearted. It takes
the reader very quickly deep into the weeds of climate
change and emissions, covering everything from politics
and standards and specifications, through to a smattering
of case studies. The report has a mass of information with
numerous useful summaries throughout the text, which
offer a sort of safe haven when it all gets too much. The
initial conclusions on page 5, the definitions (mostly), and
the inclusion of many charts and tables, all help to make it
easier to get through this otherwise very dense and turgid
subject matter.
PrintCity has thoroughly described the sterling efforts
of organisations such as Intergraf, CEPI and WAN-Ifra to
develop carbon footprinting tools. But to completely omit
the work of ISO TC130 (Graphics Technology) in general
and TC130’s Working Group 11 (the environmental
impact of print) in particular, is a great shame. So,
before we go any further, we’ve rectified this with a brief
description of ISO 16759.
Calculating the Carbon Footprint
of Print Media
This is in essence a collection of material from diverse
sources gathered together into a single reference volume,
so there are lots of facts and a few random opinions. If you
are willing to battle your way through the mass of details,
you will gain a good understanding of where the printing
industry fits in the endlessly shifting and complex
environmental and footprinting matrix. As such, it is
more of a reference work than something one might read
from start to finish.
What Got Left Behind
Working Group 11 is authoring ISO 16759, which
outlines and explains the requirements for calculating
the carbon footprint of print media products, rather than
organisations. The idea is to provide printers, print buyers,
industry associations and anyone else who is interested
with a framework methodology for carbon calculating
tools. The goal with ISO 16759 is to provide a standard
that unifies all of the efforts underway worldwide to create
carbon footprinting tools. The idea is that these tools are
transparent for print buyers, printers and consumers and
that their results can be compared like for like.
Annoyingly, PrintCity’s report has a few omissions, some
of which are serious and some of which are not. We have
to declare an interest here, because despite timely input
from us, the report does not include any description
of ISO 16759, the international standard on carbon
footprinting with which we have been closely involved.
This is very disappointing and we feel it does a bit of a
This standard marks an extremely important step in
creating a basis for comparing the carbon footprint of
print media with that of electronic media delivered to
e-readers such as the iPad or mobile phones. It is also an
important step for the industry, since it positions print
at the forefront of industry sectors developing carbon
6
24
4
footprinting standards. This is a key message for printers
struggling to reinvent themselves in the new digital world.
reference to “a standardised JDF format” (but remember
the Job Definition Format is a specification not a standard),
but that’s about it.
All together
Any discussion of PDF has been forgotten, along with
references to how the various PDF-X flavours can help
improve workflow for specific output targets, because
As one would expect there are masses of statistics and
historical references, some of which are more interesting
than others. But, most important of all, this publication
recognises the fact that “only coordinated international
action can resolve [climate change]”. It is indeed vital that
everyone who cares about the future of the planet and of
their industry pulls together. This is what initiatives such
as the Verdigris project is all about, and it is what print
industry associations worldwide recognise as they work
with their governments towards a common goal.
The Digital Challenge
PrintCity’s report raises some important questions for
the industry, such as how electronic and print media can
coexist. It also points out that supply chain management
is a key tool for emissions reduction, but supply chain
efficiencies are also important for business effectiveness
and profitability. The message here, unfortunately
omitted, is that emissions reductions go hand in hand
with process automation, digital delivery and output
close to the point of use.
The report mentions the Internet’s future role managing
smart energy grids, but it overlooks the Internet’s more
immediate value as a commercial and production
environment. It provides print producers and buyers with
an efficient on-demand platform for creating and buying
print media so they can do more of it with a reduced
environmental impact. The use of the Internet for rapid
content development and approval is also positive since it
helps to drive more jobs with greater diversity, frequency
and purpose to presses large and small, near and far.
All you ever wanted to know about carbon but were are afraid
to ask.
publishers and printers can get their files right the first
time. Impact reduction is possible through reduced
proofing cycles because it inevitably produces less waste.
Process efficiency is what it is all about when it comes to
emissions reductions. As the authors state: “The cheapest
kWh of energy is the one not used”. Short run digital
colour presses can be set up to print a run of one as
effectively as a run of thousands, yet the only references
to digital presses in PrintCity’s report are negative and
variable data isn’t even mentioned.
These may be trivial omissions given the sheer quantities
of verbiage in this report, and the lack of insight into
larger print industry and social trends can perhaps be
forgiven. However, it is a great shame that workflow
advances, the role of databases, variable data, XML and
web tools are not addressed. Nor is there any reference
to the contribution ink optimisation tools and preflight
checking make to workflow efficiency. There is a single
Perhaps some of these gaps reflect the interests of PrintCity
members, but even so it is hard to accept that as far as this
report goes digital printing technologies, on-demand
6
25
4
Taking steps towards a lower footprint.
production and variable data have no significant role to
play in environmental impact reduction. Digital printing
reduces environmental impacts because these presses
produce only what is required, and are not designed for
industrial scale production. They are capable of it, but
they are not constrained to such a production model.
It is a pity that these things were not included in the 34
pages of this report, because digital processing tools
combined with digital delivery and output of static or
variable data on demand are the foundation of the future of
print media. Nothing of this is addressed in this otherwise
extremely thorough report. Perhaps PrintCity is planning
a revision to address these gaps. Version 2.0 could be
a bug-free alternative that will really help advance the
print industry. Print is sustainable and effective, and this
is a message that all organisations serving this industry
should be shouting loud and clear.
– Laurel Brunner
6
26
4
Down
X-word Puzzle
1. Heads that move in more that one way. (13)
2. Right. (2)
Number 30
1
2
3
3. Trademark. (2)
4
5
6
7
8
4. Having the capacity to do something. (4)
9
5. Whence cometh and goeth all carbon. (5)
6. Options are all about this. (6)
10
11
7. Condition of fortituity? (9)
,
12
9. Wholly owned companies within companies. (12)
13
14
15
16
17
10. Not roll fed these devices can come up very large. (7, 8)
13. 007 doesn’t like his Martini like this. (7)
18
19
15. No printer wants to do these. (6)
20
21
23
24
22
27
30
16. Software source where there’s no fee. (4)
25
26
29
8. Something that is superfluous to purpose. (11)
31
20. To stifle or otherwise prevent expression or movement. (3)
28
21. To reduce or diminish. (6)
32
33
34
22. Initial Public Offering (2)
35
25. Legal tool to oblige one to keep a secret. (3)
26. Morning. (2)
Across
28. To print sections seamlessly for posting later. (4)
1. An expression for software overloaded with rarely used
features. (9)
30. Everything. (3)
6. All of them are in the rainbow. European spelling. (7)
31. Australian slang for an Englishman. (3)
11. Control this and you control costs and quality of result. (3,
5, 9)
32. Acronym for a new way to express dot gain. (3)
33. The essence of self: instinctual trend. (2)
12. Light, heat, energy, another word for radiated? (7)
14. They used to be prohibitively expensive, but now their
production’s a software task. (11)
17. Supplementary paper ranges. (3)
18. A guide to whether or not to spend on new kit. (3)
19. Entries that only happen once on the balance sheet. (12)
22. To be the third person singular? (2)
23. Not fat but efficiently slim. (4)
24. A means of controlling software access. (6)
27. This is a special colour. (4)
29. Visible light these are not. (7, 6)
34. Many replaced the Encapsulated in the context of EPS
with this alternative? Really wicked. (4)
35. Technique and ink category for printing on fabric. (3, 11)
6
27
4
Number 29 – Answers
B
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6
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Dear Reader, In This Issue

Transcription

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